Matthew MetzAlfred Station, New York

Statement

My work is influenced by a variety of sources: Asian pottery traditions, Greek and Roman pots, early American decorative arts, face jugs, and other folk traditions. The images on my pots are decorative. Our culture tends to look at decoration as embellishment without meaning- frosting on the cake. While I resist applying direct narrative and literal definition to my iconography, the patterns and images I choose come from my life and experience. Interest in the natural sciences (evolutionary biology, ethology) and history (archaeology, physical culture) find there way, obliquely, into the work. A coffee cup has as much capacity to carry meaning as any other form of expression.